‘So put all your clothes in a bin bag and come to Blijf!’ rang out the catchy song on 25 June 2024 at the Rode Hoed in Amsterdam. That evening, Mayor Femke Halsema presented a royal medal of honour to the Blijf group, which is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2024. Today, Blijf is recognised as an established organisation that provides shelter for victims of domestic violence.
‘So put all your clothes in a bin bag and come to Blijf!’ rang out the catchy song on 25 June 2024 at the Rode Hoed in Amsterdam. That evening, Mayor Femke Halsema presented a royal medal of honour to the Blijf group, which is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary in 2024. Today, Blijf is recognised as an established organisation that provides shelter for victims of domestic violence.
Unfortunately, (sexual) violence against women in the home remains a growing social problem. Anita Aerts, one of the founders of Blijf Amsterdam, said in an interview with AT5 on 27 July 2024 that a second Blijf shelter had been opened in Amsterdam for the first time since the opening of the first one in 1974. The history of the past fifty years shows just how crucial those radical early days were in putting this issue on the agenda, but also how important it was for the organisation to evolve alongside a constantly changing society.
We want to ‘really do something for women’
When the first ‘Blijf-van-mijn-lijf’ shelter (BVML shelter) was established in Amsterdam in 1974, politicians at the time still regarded (sexual) violence against women in the home as a private matter. These were thought to be isolated incidents that, on legal grounds, did not require protection for the victims. The aim behind setting up the first BVML shelter was ‘to really do something for women’. This principle was originally discussed at the meeting on the ‘JAC women’s project’ (JAC: the Youth Advice Centre) on 17 December 1973. During this meeting, the group of women was formed that eventually split from the JAC and opened the first BVML centre.
The founders of the early BVML houses were headstrong and ideologically driven. By pursuing their radical feminist ideals – which initially led to squatting, the development of a new form of care provision and the empowerment of women who had been abused – they ensured that (sexual) violence against women in the domestic sphere came to be recognised as a social problem. This laid the foundations for a long-standing tradition of support for victims.
In the early days, the organisation of the BVML houses was steeped in the ideological background of its founders. They wanted to demonstrate that (sexual) violence against women in the domestic sphere was a product of patriarchal society, and therefore actively distanced themselves from it. They developed the concept of ‘deprofessionalised working’, which meant that they eliminated all forms of hierarchy and dependency from their organisation. No subsidies from central or local government, and in the early years every staff member worked purely on a voluntary basis.
‘Just get started!’
The minutes of the meeting on 19 June 1974 clearly show the dilemma faced by the founders of the first BVML centre in Amsterdam when it came to finding premises for the centre:
“Through council channels or squatting? It’s difficult through the council. Endless meetings, constantly having to explain a problem ‘that doesn’t exist’.” “We can’t substantiate anything, nor prove it with figures, and that’s what they’ll focus on at first. (...) Squatting gets round that problem. Just get started – once we’ve got a few women in the house, nobody can ignore it any longer.”
And they were proved right. Shortly after the first house opened, it was a huge success: ‘supply created demand’. In no time at all, thirty to forty women and children had been housed in the first BVML house in Amsterdam. ‘We were constantly doing things we’d never done before (...) You really have no idea what’s in store for you,’ reflects Anita Aerts in 2024 on the OVT podcast ‘50 Years of Blijf van mn Lijf’.
But although terms such as ‘squatting’, ‘activism’ and ‘deprofessional’ may sound chaotic, the founders of the first BVML house set about their work in a professional and meticulous manner. The archives of BVML Amsterdam, Delft and Rotterdam all clearly demonstrate this: the boxes are filled with neatly typewritten minutes of the large number of meetings that took place. When you delve into these minutes, you see that every step was thought through in detail: lengthy reports on the reasons why only volunteers were involved, why the locations of the houses were kept secret, why they decided to squat a building; lists of organisations offering support to victims; a typed manual on how to squat professionally, complete with illustrated diagrams; correspondence with other BVML houses; the horizontal structure; the promotion of self-determination among the victims; and so on.
Working in an unprofessional manner
But not everyone felt as strongly about radical feminism as the founders did: the volunteers, founders and victims engaged in many political discussions amongst themselves. That is why the minutes of the BVML Amsterdam branch meeting of 22 May 1974 stated:“Good feminist activities do not have to get in each other’s way”. At the end of the day, providing support to victims was always the most important thing.
‘Children’s work’
The ‘professionalisation’ of radical feminism
From the 1980s onwards, the strongly radical feminist ideology of the BVML centres increasingly faded into the background. Whilst in the early days the aim had been not only to provide support to victims but also to campaign and bring (sexual) violence against women in the domestic sphere onto the political agenda, as time went on, providing shelter for victims became an ever-greater priority. It became clear that the shelters were indispensable to society; the original, unique way of working could simply no longer support the scale of the organisation.
A problem ‘that doesn’t exist’?
In the late 1980s, a substantial amount of funding had become available, which was used to launch a large-scale study into the extent of (sexual) violence against women in the domestic sphere. In 1992, Professor Rénee Römkens, a specialist in gender-based violence, published the findings: 20 per cent of Dutch women had unequivocally experienced (sexual) violence within the home. Five per cent had experienced repeated violence, and 8 per cent of women had been raped within their marriage. The study also showed that anyone could be a victim: rich, poor, black, white, religious or non-religious.
These figures were shocking. They contributed to a wave of political decisions taken in the 1990s: rape within marriage was made a criminal offence; (sexual) violence within the domestic sphere was recognised as a social problem; and women were able to apply for restraining orders themselves. Most of these developments were initiated by the then State Secretary for Social Affairs and Employment, Hedy d’Ancona, who herself had been particularly active in the radical feminist movement of the ‘second wave of feminism’ in the 1970s.
Who is the victim?
The scientific research highlighted the need for BVML homes in society. It had become clear much earlier that the founders of the BVML homes were engaged in something of such great social importance. For example, as early as 1978, the homes applied for a grant that would enable them to employ on a salaried basis the staff responsible for the children’s care. In 1980, this grant was awarded on the condition that a central governing body be established for all BVML homes. This led to the founding of the Blijf Group.
Around the late 1980s and early 1990s, questions began to be raised from within the organisation about the unprofessional way of working. When, in 1997, the BVML home in Amsterdam was occupied by its residents because an unsafe atmosphere had developed within the home, the situation reached a boiling point. They deliberately distanced themselves from the horizontal structure and appointed a director. This gradual change within BVML was in step with the political changes and academic research of the time: all of this was driven by women active in the feminist movement who succeeded in exerting a tangible influence on politics and society.
The houses are being painted
The 1980s and 1990s were also characterised by the Netherlands becoming increasingly multicultural. Suriname’s independence in the 1980s, the influx of migrants from Indonesia and the recruitment of ‘migrant workers’ from countries such as Turkey and Morocco had an impact on society. This was also reflected in the BVML homes. Cecilia Pérez Yáñes, one of the first black, migrant and refugee women to work at Blijf, described in a 2014 interview published by Atria that, initially, 60 per cent to 70 per cent of the women housed at Blijf were white. During this period, this began to change gradually.
Black, migrant and refugee women
The increase in diversity within the BVML homes also makes it clear that the deprofessionalised way of working was, in fact, primarily suited to white, middle-class women. A different approach was needed to provide appropriate care for a diverse group of women. From that point onwards, the BVML homes began recruiting black, migrant and refugee women as staff members to develop a new way of working together. The most appropriate approach is best derived from the community itself. One of the first stumbling blocks was the fact that everyone worked on a voluntary basis: many black, migrant and refugee women came from a more unstable social background, making it impossible for them to work without pay. Together with the political changes, this development within the BVML homes led the organisation to seek a different, more inclusive, form of management.
Hands Off Me: (unfortunately) now an integral part of our lives
Nowadays, the locations of most BVML houses are public knowledge, whereas in the past they were kept strictly secret. These houses are called Orange Houses: ‘(...) and why don’t we make a Blijfhuis (...) orange, because that’s obviously a lovely, eye-catching colour, with a white flagpole topped with purple balls. Why don’t we build a house like that and make a statement to society: we’ll all keep our hands off this. We’ll protect our women.’ said Cokky Roel, former director of the Alkmaar Blijfhuis, when, in 2014, she looked back on the transition from the secret ‘Blijf-van-mijn-lijf’ shelters to the public ‘Oranje Huizen’ from 2010 onwards, a change she had initiated.
Much has changed since the 1990s. The BVML shelters are professional institutions operating under the umbrella organisation Blijf Groep. They form part of a wider network of care institutions, the justice system and security services. Victims of domestic violence should receive all the help they need in as streamlined a manner as possible. On a practical level, little remains of the non-professional approach, but the feminist context from which the work is carried out is still very much alive. For violence against women within the home is, unfortunately, still a structural social problem.
